DEA agents involved in killing civilians in Honduras
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed Wednesday that some of its agents were aboard a U.S.-owned helicopter with Honduran police who opened fire on a small boat on a Honduran river, and a local official said two men and two pregnant women were killed. - Angry inhabitants of the largely Indian Mosquito coast region burned down several government offices in the area in response to the attack and issued a statement saying they wanted DEA agents out of the area. The shooting took place Friday on the Patuca River in northeastern Honduras. Honduran and U.S. officials said the helicopter team was part of an anti-drug mission and the Honduran officers on board fired only after their aircraft was shot at first. Local officials said the victims were diving for lobster and shellfish when their boat came under fire. "These innocent residents were not involved in the drug problem, were in their boat going about their daily fishing activities ... when they gunned them down from the air," Lucio Vaquedano, the mayor of the coastal town of Ahuas, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
John Glaser: US DEA Agents Kill Up to Six Civilians in Honduras - Initially keeping the incident under wraps, US authorities now claim Honduran forces did the shooting - U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed up to six innocent civilians and wounded several more in Honduras in a raid which took place at the end of last week. The dead included two pregnant women and two children. The DEA agents fired from helicopter gunships at a boat carrying the civilians, mistaking it for their intended target – a boat carrying drug traffickers.